I Didn't Have a Problem with Georgia-Florida Being a Home-and-Home Until the SEC Messed with Scheduling
The latest hot topic coming out of Kirby Smart’s statements at SEC media days is whether or not it is time for the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party (WLOCP) to leave Jacksonville and become a home-and-home series. Kirby has expressed several times a preference for the game to be a home-and-home so he can host top recruits at the biggest rivalry game of the year. Of course, both Georgia and Florida fans have very, very strong feelings about the idea of the game leaving Jacksonville, where it has resided for almost 100 years. Almost. 100. Years. It is one of the last of the neutral site rivalries, competing only with Oklahoma-Texas and Army-Navy for the title of the most prestigious neutral site rivalry game.
I am very much a college football traditionalist. I hate almost every change coming to the sport besides NIL. Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC was a stupid idea for the sport, and further conference realignment has been even worse. I’ve written about this, so I won’t rehash old rants. However, it is hard for me to picture a world without the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party being in Jacksonville. A 50/50 allocation of tickets no matter who is the home team. St. Simon’s Island beach parties. The Landing after the game. Oh, the Landing. I’ll touch on that in a moment. It’s a destination event, and that’s one of the things that made it so great.
All of that being said, I’ve become much more open to a home-and-home over the past few years. First of all, I went to the game in Jacksonville in 2019, right after the city tore down The Landing, and it was an absolutely awful experience. You would think that Jacksonville had never held an event like this before. Incredible to think that The Landing held the whole thing together. There was supposed to be a “Block Party” after the game to replace The Landing. It was nowhere to be found. At best, it was not easy to find, even if you thought you knew where to look.
Okay, so there was nowhere to party. So we just get an Uber back to the hotel and wind down there, right? Wrong. The cell service was bad for everyone, and if you even got service, good luck getting an Uber that would take your ride. We ended up walking a few miles to get back to the hotel across the river in sketchy-ass Jacksonville, then ordered a Papa John’s that took 3 hours to deliver, then spent the whole night on the toilet.
It was in no way what it was just a decade before, when you ate wings at the Landing Hooters, bought a liquor drink from a random kiosk, then danced in the huge Landing mosh pit watching drunk moms grind on 19 year old college kids. Jacksonville is already a shit hole, but you used to be able to tolerate it because of the festivities. So when the festivities were gone, you just had Jacksonville. Yikes. Aside from that experience, I am also a season ticket holder (surprise, surprise). Since our current scheduling system has Auburn and Tennessee at home in the same year, odd-numbered years have typically had weak scheduling. If it wasn’t for Arkansas and Kentucky having good years last season, it would have been a totally boring slate. You could have Florida at home one year and Auburn at home the next. Now you always have a marquee game at home to count on every season. When you play the game at home, you have 90% of the crowd booing the Gators, which is nice. That works both ways, but still. You will have either College Game Day or at least SEC Network’s version on campus every time. But Athens would also be overly crowded. Overflowing. I’ve been to crowded games—Georgia-Florida would be absurd. But it *would* be the WLOCP…in your home town. Definitely a big pro. I can see how this would be extremely attractive.
Of course, no small, potentially positive change gets to have its moment, alone, in the sun. The new proposed SEC scheduling system, pods with a few permanent opponents and a rotating schedule for the remaining games, makes a home-and-home much less attractive. The conference will not break up Georgia-Florida or Alabama-Auburn, so the Deep South’s Oldest rivalry will be on the chopping block. They won’t put Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Auburn in a pod together. Who’s left? Where’s the balance? That pod’s like Verdun and Stalingrad mixed into one. So now that you don’t have Auburn at home every other year, and you still play Florida every year, what do you have left? The SEC claims we’ll have more interesting rotating opponents in exchange for losing one of our two most important rivalries. Oh yeah, Mississippi State! Arkansas! Texas A&M! Let’s go! Give me a break. When you see Auburn on the schedule, you know it’ll be fun because you’ve talked crap to Barners for years and years and years. So, now that we really have one marquee annual rivalry surviving the new scheduling system, why not keep it something special? Something unique? Keep it in Jacksonville to maintain some level of normalcy for the fans. Under the current system, home-and-home WLOCP could be made to work. Now, thanks to national money influencing the scheduling slate, you need at least one special neutral site game for every season because the league needs you to go to Starkville and College Station more often. Yippee.
Yes, I want Kirby Smart to continue to recruit at an elite level, and Georgia-Florida is likely a huge recruiting tool, but with all the changes going on in the sport, let the fans have something near and dear to their hearts.
One last thing:
UPDATE: Literally right after this published, it was announced that recruits *can* be hosted at the WLOCP. Seems like a big deal in the context of the future of this game. This might be enough to keep the game in Jacksonville for the foreseeable future, even in a new scheduling format.